A place where you want to return again and again
I was in Goa from January 20 to February 4.2011. Tickets were taken at UIA (650 USD), visa 40 USD. + at 35c. u. chipped in for clearance (no one wanted to stand in line at the embassy).
We were a group of 5 people. +1 has been sitting there for over a month.
The flight takes 5 hours to Abu Dhabi, refueling there (you hang out at the airport for about an hour), + 3 hours already to Goa (Panaji). They sent a taxi to the airport for us - to Ashvem, where we lived, 1200 rupees. ($1 = 45 rupees).
In Ashvem they rented 1 one-story villa (2 bedrooms, common room, large corridor, kitchen, shower, toilet, veranda) for 680 USD. (2 weeks) + next to the second floor in the villa (everything is the same, instead of a veranda, respectively, a balcony - 800 USD for 2 weeks). In front of the house there is a road like a health track (only sometimes cars drive and they drive mopeks) and the beach immediately begins.
We rented 3 mopeds (200 rupees / day, gasoline for some reason 55 rupees / l). It is expensive and stressful to travel by taxi, but mopeds are the best!
We ate around in cafes-bars-restaurants (prices are normal, the fattest breakfast is 180 rubles, in our favorite Italian restaurant an average dish is 200-250 rubles, in the Russian Sky bar and Good evening the menu is not extensive and more expensive, it’s cool in Bed- Roque and in Mandrem, in a cafe near the beach, they serve delicious food, nobody ate delicious meat here - they don’t know how to cook, and seafood and fish for me, a vegetarian, were in abundance and everything was very tasty).
The beach is very cool, there are not many people in Ashvem and, like Morzhin, it is designed mainly for Russian tourists. Palm Grove mostly went to the beach, and they had breakfast there - a few sun loungers, so there are few people, and the massage therapist next door is cool (1000 rupees - 1.5 hours, if 5 or more massages, then 800 each).
You need to take at least a minimum of clothes with you - you spend the whole day in a swimsuit and a pareo (you lie on it and sunbathe, they are 100 rubles each on the beach), and in the evening you can put something on (girls will definitely not need heels, like cosmetics , for the evening you can take a thin blouse / jacket, and if you are going to drive normally on mopeds at night, then even a leather jacket is better - it’s 18-20 km to the night market in Arpora, it froze a little in a windbreaker).
During the day +30 - +33, at night +25 - +28 (ie, as we have in July), water +28 somewhere. For all the time we didn’t even see a cloud - it’s sunny all the time.
We were in Baga - there were people on the beach like we have in Arcadia on weekends, in a shop I bought a cool leather bag for 1500 rupees. At the night market in Arpora (I don’t remember exactly, it seems like on Saturdays) it’s fun to just rummage around, hang out, there are a lot of cool handicraft gizmos. In Arambol, as for me, it’s too noisy - a normal bazaar, at the same time we went to the well-known banyan tree, we ate freshly cooked crab shrimp on the beach (but I don’t really like it there - it stinks while it’s all fried).
At home, they cooked shrimp and crabs a couple of times (you get sick of crabs until you clean them, so they didn’t even encroach on lobsters).
We went to Paradise Beach (fun, but not as much as it is described). On the way, you need to cross the river by ferry (they charge only from cars - 10 rupees). Half an hour to the left along the shore and you can climb the old fort, where interesting monkey trees have grown along the walls (you should immediately send off the local pestering guides). In front of the fort, a river flows into the sea - in the morning, until the low tide is strong, you need to swim across by boat (back and forth for 50 rupees. We agreed, and by lunchtime and after you can safely go on your own). They dragged 1 moped ashore and drove along the water's edge - awesome! We drove back to Fort Tirakol, we thought to have lunch, but the menu there is small and expensive, and the hotel is cool (but 200 USD / day and there is no beach).
I was at a real trance party in Liquid Sky - very cool, but the prices are the same as ours (entry - 500 rupees, according to the flyers that we inopportunely lost - 250.2 x 60 ml of vodka + redbull - 550 rupees). There was nothing particularly interesting in Good Evening, but because of the proximity to the house, it was also possible to hang out a little. We went to Marbella a couple of times - they sometimes seem to have normal parties there (something like our Ibiza), but there was nothing interesting for our "happiness" in those days.
2 weeks went by very quickly. I'm not a serious traveler (Turkey, Egypt, Tunisia, now also the UAE), but this is incomparable - it was just 2 weeks in paradise! The people are very friendly, no one is nervous. They quickly got used to the harassment of sellers on the beach and learned to reject them, like beggars (there are few of them and they are mostly activated on weekends).
Only 1 visited the tour - a reserve (waterfall), a spice plantation, 1 Hindu and 2 Catholic temples (65 USD per person + 20 per car to be picked up and taken straight home).
They took the drunkard with them (they took it in Boryspil in a dutik), and from the local one they liked the Old Monk rum and port wine No. limka is very cool (limka is their local lime + lemon soda), awesome tomato juice, and even with tabasco and vodka, it turns out to be an excellent bloody mery, gin with lima is good, and our scotch just went well with ice (we bought ice bags specially) .
I can’t say anything bad about unsanitary conditions - everything was pretty clean and comfortable in Ashvem, on the contrary, I arrived and could not get used to the shit around, going to work in Moldavanka in the morning.
The food is tasty. For 2 weeks, three times it was bad, but not so completely pipets - they ate tablets, they didn’t run far from the pot and everything ended happily. At the same time, they usually ate everything together and the same, but it was bad on different days, so you don’t have to sin on food - it just didn’t work.
Injuries were received by 2 people, having fallen from a moped (it's good that they are not serious), and there are a lot of such vacationers. So I don’t recommend scorching (it’s hard to immediately get used to left-hand traffic without any rules).
It is better to use local mobile communications - you bought a SIM card and you are talking at a normal price (7-10 rupees / min. to Ukraine).
All of our company were very satisfied with the rest, I would like to repeat and preferably longer (2 weeks is still not enough).
As a result, approximately 800 Baku dollars were spent on the spot with a crochet run, i. e. taking into account the flight somewhere around 1.5 thousand / person. for 2 weeks - without fattening, but in principle without denying yourself anything.
Here is my brief report about the rest in Goa. I would be glad if someone finds it useful.
